What was life like for pilots in ww1

His face, particularly peaceful, had an expression of gentleness and goodness, of refinement. Suddenly I felt miserable, desperately unhappy, as if I had committed an injustice. With a feeling of shame, a kind of anger against myself moved in my thoughts, that I had forced him to lay there. And in my heart, I cursed the force that is devoted to death. If I could, I would gladly have brought him back to life, but that is somewhat different than shooting a gun.

I could no longer look him in the face. I went away. I did not feel like a victor. There was a lump in my throat. If he had been my dearest friend, I could not have felt greater sorrow. While I was awake, the nurse came in. When I heard her, I jumped and was as frightened as a baby.

After that, every little noise made me jump and frightened me the same. Please excuse me writing and telling you all this. I must unburden myself some time. Brown did not see action again, and after his recovery, he became a flight instructor. On July 15, , he took an airplane for a practice flight and fainted in the air.

His aircraft crashed from about feet, and he suffered severe injuries but survived. And though the strain of combat had reduced him to a nervous wreck, he somehow managed to lead his squadron in targeting German pilots, while racking up 73 victories of his own. On July 13, , Mannock shot down a two-seat reconnaissance biplane. The victory afforded him his first close inspection of a victim. The observer escaped death.

The pilot was horribly mutilated. I felt exactly like a murderer. I am rather old now, as airmen go, for fighting. These times are so horrible that occasionally I feel that life is not worth hanging on to. I had thoughts of getting married, but not now. He smiled weakly at me when he saw me watching and tried to make light of it. He would not talk about it at all. I felt helpless not being able to do anything. He was ashamed to let me see him in this condition but could not help it, however hard he tried.

Mannock wrote a letter to a Mary Lewis shortly before his final patrol. He and a new pilot were over Pacaut Wood when German rifle and machine-gun fire hit the port side of his S. Mannock lost control, and the airplane crashed behind German lines near Merville. His body was taken out of his airplane and buried by German soldiers somewhere in northern France. Continue or Give a Gift. Daily Planet. Flight Today. History of Flight. Virtual Space. The destruction of a German biplane may have affected its attacker as well as its pilot.

Library of Congress. German ace Ernst Udet struggled with the ethics of war even as he scored 64 victories. NASM However much newspaper reporters tried to romanticize the exploits of World War I aviators, there was no glossing over the cold, hard killing power of machine guns—even ones mounted on airplanes. Manfred von Richthofen's body was photographed after he was killed.

Brown took no pleasure in the death of the young German pilot. Accidents were common and for most of the war casualties at training units were greater than losses in action. Unfortunately, the ever-increasing demand for pilots at the front, and a lack of resources at the flying schools, meant some students received insufficient training and arrived at operational squadrons unprepared for combat.

Partly because of this, casualties rose sharply and by the spring of the life expectancy of a new pilot could be measured in weeks. Gradually the situation improved and, as the RFC continued to grow, its training organization became more sophisticated.

A Training Brigade was formed and specialist schools, staffed by veterans, were established to teach air fighting, bomb dropping, night flying and a variety of other skills. Schools were also set up overseas. Army Signal Corps received just hours of flight training over a few months before going into combat. By contrast, it takes about two years of specialized training to become an operational fighter pilot today. In modern-day aviation, it takes years to design, test, and produce a new aircraft model.

In WWI, however, new airplanes were put into action within weeks of design. Even more amazingly, some U. A letter from a year old WWI aviator veteran recalled the construction of their Jennys.

What we did rigging them would scare the pants off of me today.